A/HRC/14/24 II. Assessing State responsiveness to communications 1. A systematic review of communications from December 2004 to March 2009a yields the following findings: • 523 communications relating to unlawful killings were sent (an average of 130 letters per year). • 231 urgent appeals, 276 allegation letters, and 16 follow-up letters were sent. • Communications were sent to countries in all regions (a total of 87 countries and 3 other actors).b • The letters concerned more than 6,250 individuals (an average of over 1,560 individuals per year). • Most of the letters concerned death penalty cases (over 150 letters), attacks or killings (over 90 letters)c, and deaths in custody (over 80). • The response rate to communications was generally poor. Of the 523 communications sent, 256 (or 49%) were not responded to at all. A “no response” rate of roughly 50% was observed in each year during the period under review. • There were 118 responses categorized as “largely satisfactory” (23% of the total, or approximately 50% of the letters responded to). “Largely satisfactory” is the most positive characterization given to a Government’s reply in Special Rapporteur communications reports in prior years.d It denotes a reply that is responsive to the allegations and substantially clarifies the facts, but does not imply that the Government’s actions necessarily complied with international human rights law. Nevertheless, it is encouraging that when Governments do respond, half of their letters are largely responsive to the allegations made. • Of the countries which received letters, 30% received only one letter during the period under review. Over 70% received five or less letters. The 15 countries that received the most communications were: Iran (Islamic Republic of) (63), Colombia (28), Pakistan (28), Sri Lanka (24), Saudi Arabia (22), China (19), the United States of America (18), India (18), Nepal (17), Yemen (17), the Sudan (16), Iraq (14), the Philippines (14), Bangladesh (14), and Brazil (13).e Letters to these countries represent just over 60% of the total number of communications sent.f a b c d e The review relies on the data provided in each annual communication report. It does not cover letters sent between March 2009 and April 2010 since sufficiently detailed information on those letters is not yet available. The communications addendum to this report contains letters sent from 16 March 2009 to 15 March 2010, and replies received from 1 May 2009 to 30 April 2010. During that period 102 communications were sent to 44 countries and 1 other actor. These included 61 urgent appeals and 41 allegation letters. The main issues covered in the communications were: the death penalty (31), deaths in custody (14), the death penalty for minors (7), excessive use of force (16), impunity (3), attacks or killings (23), armed conflict (3), death threats (2) and others (3). See Appendix I for a list of the letters sent. The category of “attacks or killings” covers acts by State security forces, or by paramilitary groups, death squads, or other private forces cooperating with or tolerated by the State. The other categories are: “cooperative but incomplete response”, “allegations rejected but without adequate substantiation”, “receipt acknowledged”. See the annual communications reports of the Special Rapporteur for more detail. The fact that these States received the most communications should not necessarily be taken as an indication that they have the most significant problems of unlawful killings. This is because letters are 25